Finally! Another Game Night

I wasn't able to stay as long as I wanted to but I was able to attend game night last night.

The big game that was played last night was Fantasy Flight's new release Warrior Knights (which is actually a re-release of a much older game). I wasn't involved. I didn't feel like learning a long, rules heavy game. The six players who were involved all seemed to be enjoying themselves but I never did get a definitive reply to my "is it good?" line of questioning. All I can comment on are the bits, which look exactly like I would expect from a Fantasy Flight game: very nice.

Jose, Christopher, Mike M., Birch and I started with a game of Big Manitou. I'd played this once before and this game didn't do much to alter my initial opinion. There's a decent game here and I can see why some people like it but it's not really my cup of tea. There's just a little too much dependency on turn order (last is best) and while the turn order rotates with each round, whoever does well in the first round is rewarded in subsequent rounds. Furthermore, the English rules are almost unintelligible. Get the revised rules from the publisher's website if you want to figure out how to play it (and even they aren't perfect). Christopher moaned and groaned about the game all the way to an easy victory. I doubt we'll play it again.

Tejas brought in Bolide so Mike M. and Christopher played it with him. (Was there a fourth player? I don't think so.) Bolide is a racing game played on a track overlaid with a grid (think graph paper). Each player has a car and a little marker which is used to record their car's current vector (direction and speed of travel). On each turn you are allowed to change your car's acceleration only a specific amount. The way you do that is you move your car to a spot that's within a certain distance of your vector marker, then you move your vector marker to indicate the distance and direction your car just travelled. There are additional rules for braking and drafting and things like that. The bits looked great. The gameplay, I have to admit, didn't really interest me very much. I work with vectors all day long so this just seemed a little too much like work for me. It's got a 7+ rating on the geek so obviously there are plenty out there who do like the game. The consensus with our group seemed to be take it or leave it.

Meanwhile, Darryl, Birch, Tejas, and I played Aladdin's Dragons. Now this is a great game. Aladdin's Dragons is a blind bidding game. Players have eight numbered disks (1-9, skipping the 3) which they place, face down, in a number of areas on the board. Each area is then scored. Some areas get you gems. Some areas get you magic spells or special abilities. Some areas let you spend your gems for treasures. At the end of the game, whoever has collected the most treasures wins. I like all of Richard Breese's games that I've played and this is no exception. Our game was very tight but I edged Darryl out for the victory.

Finishing the night for me were several quick games of No Thanks. This is just a fantastic filler game. It's extremely simple and extremely short and extremely fun. Try it. You'll like it.